rxsumo

Typical Rootes/British car of this era - check for rust - and evidence of rust repairs - as its likely to be bad in the sills - and A pillar - inner guard.

These were the base for the Sunbeam Alpine cars.

There used to be one of these with Hunter running gear, kicking around Ngaio when I was at the Service Station - really nice wagon - look great slightly hot rodded.

So convert to discs at the front - Holbay spec 1725 engine - overdrive gearbox and taller diff - make a nice reliable cruiser

Not to much to add at this stage.

The 10A is out, and we are prep'ing the 12A to go into the hole.

The clutch packs have arrived - but when we came to mate the motor up - we worked out that we had a late model flywheel - doh

So now we have another shiny thing to go on the car....

Shot over to Brissy on the weekend to pickup my radiator - more shiny bits - at 2/3 of the price that the NZ agent wanted for unit

While we were over there, decided it might be time to visit Phil's Rotarys and pickup a set of his replica "tea cup" tail lights - so I can get the true early Savanna GT look

Another option might be to look for an early Fox Body Mustang Diff - looked very similar in  width to Cortina

I worked for a printer servicing company - and we had Ladas as company cars - I had a Lime green 1300cc 2102 wagon - on CNG - you think they are bad on petrol - try one on CNG - wouldnt actually go up some of Wellington's hills.

As a newish car - they actually werent that bad - the plastics hate the NZ sun, and watch out for heater valves seizing - so no heater in the winter - not flash. The other issue is servicing - as they still have grease points all through the car - most people forget about greasing them - the dissy shaft bearings failing was a common problem when I had my one.

The wagons are nice and airy with all the glass - and the ride position is good for all round vision.

the motors are pretty bullet proof if looked after - apparently the Grp N rally cars would pull 8000 rpm all day - and the only real servicing was to change the bearings after each rally

Personally - I wouldnt bother with POR15 - I've had a better run from Hammerite.

Every time I've used the stuff - Trailer - Fuel Tanks etc, I've assed around preparing with their acid wash - and the paint still peels off in great chunks a year or so down the track - with rust under the paint.

I certaining wouldnt be paying a premium price - for something that performs so poorly - and doesnt do what its says on the label

Haha that thing is retarded. Still there is merit in the big yank trucks, the Sierra I have is rated to something like 5t towing capacity and its just a baby think the HD ones are rated to something like10t. Not many trucks around with a towing capacity like that, seats 6 and still drives real nice day to day. Maybe a little big to park easily but I can still take it down town. If you have a 5th wheel camper or a big race car trailer etc there isn't much else unless you go to a actual truck lol, especially when you think of the distances in the US some people will be towing.

After having the towbar built by Bestbars in Auckland for the Bronco - I'd be a little "iffy" about the American towing ratings.

I can buy a 10000lb towbar in the States (and probably even higher rating) - yet Bestbars who have a  comprehensive testing regime wont rate a bar heavier than 3.0 tonne for the Bronco - due to the 4WD suspension setup.

For the real heavy stuff the Americans have some huge towball sizes - so you are unlikely to actually use the setup here - as they wont meet NZ standards - and you start having licence issues due to the weight of the vehicle and trailer.

I'm a fan of Dynatron Alarms and immobilisers - had them in any of the vehicles that didnt have factory alarms - mainly because of the support for these units.

The exception is their GPS product - and personally I wouldnt bother with a GPS unit if its your only alarm component.

If you really want a GPS tracking- disabling unit to be useful - nobody should know about the unit - otherwise it is really easy to defeat.

My experience is based on the early Dynatron Units - however I suspect nothing has really change except for the Vodafone coverage.

So the issues with GPS -

The GPS unit must be able to "see" satelites -

- So they dont work in your standard "skyline" style tin shed, or the Picton ferry - or a covered trailer.

- So to defeat the unit a trick was to rent a tin roof garage close to where the car was - and either pull the car into a covered trailer or simply move the car - wait for the battery to go flat - usually within a week  and then tow the car away at your convenience.

- The GPS alarm unit also needs a aerial of some description - a lot of older cars have metal dashboards (like the RX3) - so concealing the aerial can be a mission - no aerial - can see satelites

The phone conponent

- Dont use a prepay SIM in the unit - unless you know its not going to expire

- I didnt use the tracker component in the car regularly, so you had no idea if the phone was still connected to the network, when required - in 3 years we had something like 3 or 4 expired SIMs - thanks to the mismanagement on the services

- no phone on the network = no ability to query car/location etc

-  Vodafone coverage - at the time, my car had extremely marginal coverage at best whilst in the garage.

A combo of the tin shed - so no satelite visibility, meant that the alarm was constainly trying to report in that it had no satelites, which in turn would have caused the phone to try and connect - which eventually flattened the battery.

Obviously technology has moved on somewhat since my experience - but the fundamental issues with GPS alarms are the same - need to see satelites - need to have mobile coverage, and if either of these are removed from the unit - its useless.

I'd work out the most likely place that you leave the car - that somebody will steal it from - if they are scoping your garage - then work on the security of the garage rather than the car - if its off the street - fit a quality alarm that will kill the functions required to drive the car away - and if towing is likely - if necessary fit a wheel clamp to the car

For towing we have our Ford Bronco - or a BMW 528 wagon.

I prefer the torque of the V8 - although the fuel ecomomy of the BMW six is attractive - it seems a little silly when the fuel consumption on the tow vehicle is more than the race car for a days racing.

The Bronco occasionally gets used as the course recovery vehicle - which is why I replaced a XR8 ute with the 4WD Bronco.

We have  towed with a XF and XH Falcon ute - the XH was better "out of the box" - as the factory tickford suspension - seemed to tow better, the XF required air shocks at the back to get the ride height/drawbar weight right.

Only issue we have had with the Bronco - has been with my last trailer - over 6 metres long - getting the drawbar height was critical - and in the end we installed a Ford Explorer load leveller for when we had heavy loads on it - suspect this was due to a few factors - the slightly softer 4WD suspension - 31 inch tyres, and the tall drawbar height

Same load on the wagon - with its factory air rear suspension had no dramas

A parcel finally arrived from the States - but only after giving the NZ Customs Service a donation....

Anyway nice shiny bits

Racing Beat 12A race header - for a pre RX7 12A, as well as some extra flange plates just in case we decide to rebuild the centre section of the exhaust at some stage

Its been a pretty sombre affair of the last month or so.

After rebuilding the motor again - at the last outing, we didnt even get practice out of the way before something let go. Suspect its something on the side of the front rotor this time - as the engine went very smoky, was fouling plugs, and blowing oil out of the catch bottle - however the apex seals are intact this time.

Enough is enough, so the 10A is going to be gone from the engine bay shortly.

With having our overseas holiday earlier in the year, and breaking a few engines, its time to ease up a little and let the finances recover.

We have a few things to sort out prior to the 12A going into the hole.

I need to sort out an exhaust - mainly headers, get some new clutch discs for the Tilton twin plate - the 12A has a brand new flywheel, with a Titon twin plate setup, but the plates are setup for the larger splined FD gearbox, and some of the minor ancillaries - like water pump.

One otehr thing to sort out was the needle valve in the carbie. Apparently the 12A will empty the IDA fuel bowl on the dyno at high RPMs - and the standard "big" 3mm needle valve was the issue, and the needle valve had been drilled to at least 4mm to resolve the issue. The exercise in drilling the needle valve sounded a little iffy to me - and I knew that Gene Berg did modified valves - so this is also on the to buy list.

So we have ordered

- a new set of Headers in from Racing Beat in the states

- some 4 mm "racing" needle valves for the IDA from Gene Berg in the states

- next on the list is the new clutch discs

In the meantime - I decided it was time to sort out the engine bay wiring loom - that had been seriously monkeyed with over time, along with the main battery feeder.

The previous setup had no inline fusing - the old fusible link was still installed, but was included almost as almost a secondary power circuit - so effectively was useless

So we have a nice new maxi blade fuse setup on the battery feeder

The old battery kill solenoid has also been removed - as this would drain the battery if left on - as well as the battery terminals were exposed - not good!

Hopefully some more photos later.....

My guess would be that there are less than 10 in NZ, both L10A and L10B.

Suggest you try joining/contacting the CosmoSport Club in Japan for parts.

http://cosmosport.net/cosmosport.htm

You will initially get routed to one of the members in America - who will act as a go between between you and the Japanese guys

I found the best way to get involved with the club is to go to Japan (Tokyo) - once the guys meet you and you get involved with the club - they are really helpful - and as a international visitor - they treat you like royality.

The other alternative is to try Yahoo Japan

Fucking swooooon

 

http://www.iemotorsport.com/bmw/E9-E3-exhaust/m30header.html

Only gotcha is that they are designed to run with a LHD car - you might find a steering box in the way....

Thats why most M30 BMW "factory" race cars stay LHD - to hard too get a nice set of headers fitting with the steering box position

Oh - and I've brought a 12A PP - so the old gal might be a little more reliable once fitted, with more HP to boot

Well the engine is back in the car again.

The damage wasnt limited to the rotor external bits mentioned above, the engine also destroyed the Rotor Gear locating roll pins, and they were a bastard to get out. It got to having to have some of them removed by spark erosion, and then it took a day to get the new ones in.

The motor still didnt want to play ball, as once in the car, it decided to leak oil from the rear stationary gear o-rings, as well as mis-firing through the mid range - on brand new NGK plugs.

So we ripped the gearbox out and sorted the rear seals, stripped and blew out the carbie, still had a mis-fire through the mid-range.

We found some old used plugs lying around the workshop....and this improved the mis-fire.

Over last weekend I fitted another set of fresh plugs....and all the issues disappeared.

On the cosmetic front - I landed a set of the "proper" Savanna GS-II/GT bonnet vents for the car

not great luck on the engine side of things - oddly enough My brother in laws old R100 with the glen munro built 10A PP took a severe beating with no dramas - apparently they are pretty picky with fuelling, his had a 48mm IDA on it / i know nothing about rotaries.. I think he still has the spare P plate 10A PP..

The big issue with the fueling that we found, was actually finding main jets small enough for the 10A/IDA combination. The standard weber sets are too big, which generally leads to fueling issues because the jets are to big, or inconsistancies because the jets are "filled and drilled". By hunting around you can find the tiny main jets, which is what we have fitted.

12a is a good idea if I may say..

 

Is that an NGK plug?

Yep, a NGK Plug - but not with a build number on the faulty plug list....

Update time - and more tails of woe.

The weekend after we got back from Japan - it was time for the Intermarque sprints again, dug the car out of the garage after its 6 week rest.

The Intermarque went okay - albeit slow lap times, as the track was wet to start, and then just slippery, before the rain settled about 1:00pm, and I called it quites.

Last weekend was the last round of the Road and Track series, so I thought I'd take the car out for a run.

Things got off to a bad start, when I had coolant flowing over the bonnet during the practise run (due to me, not putting the radiator cap on properly), but got a whole lot worst when the car dropped the front rotor again.

One of the apex seals, and its spring wasnt to be found in the engine, along with a broken corner seal, and a broken side seal (suspect this was caused by the seal getting stuck in the corner seal - that wasnt located because of the missing apex seal)

We are guessing this might be the culprit....

One of these plugs aint like the other one.....

So either the tip coming away has smashed the apex seal, or detonation caused by the plug misfiring (or not firing), has taken its toil.

So at this stage, I think the 10A will be rebuild to see the season out, but I'm seeing a 12A in this cars future.

My spares pool of NOS 10A parts is getting severely depleted, with the builds, and I dont want to be in a position of not havings new parts for the Cosmo Sport, so its time for a change in direction....

Parcel arrived from Japan on Tuesday 

The bumper is mint except for the little dent you can see on the LHS - the underside of the one on the car has rust holes that would be difficult to repair and rechrome

The Tail-light surrounds are better than the ones on the car, and will require rechoming

While we were in Germany in June, Ulli who runs the www.e12.de site, decided to have an informal get together at Jesewang Airport just outside Munich for the E12/E28 5 series register.
Ulli and one of the other club members drove around 600kms from outside of Dusseldorf in the orange 525, they picked up the red 530i Motorsport about 15km away from the airport. It belongs to the owner of the Black E28 M5.
The Hartge came over from Austria for the day.




We ended up with 6 cars in total, but only 4 cars could make the photoshoot.
The gold 528 had another function to attend, and the 530i had a fuel pump failure (we me diving under to try and fix), and it ended up on the end of a towrope behind a ADAC service vehicle. I got my introduction to driving LHD, driving the M5, following the 530 being towed to a local workshop for repairs




The 530i was a really rare car, the first E12 Motorsport car, only 800 were built to this spec. The M5 also had a story, this is the actual car used for the E34 M5 brochures and advertising.


The Hartge was the genuine item - based on a E28 528i



The blue 525 was an awesome original example - with nice period accessories

And the LeMans car (#202 is a 767B?) must have been aural incredibleness.

There is 4 mins of the warm up sequence here...

http://s13.photobucket.com/user/rxsumo/media/Mazda%20Festa%202013/SAM_4049_zps4a396c9b.mp4.html?sort=3&o=4

Leaving the pit

http://s13.photobucket.com/user/rxsumo/media/Mazda%20Festa%202013/SAM_4086_zpscba89f11.mp4.html

Out on the track

http://s13.photobucket.com/user/rxsumo/media/Mazda%20Festa%202013/SAM_3988_zpsdaa75c37.mp4.html

The CosmoSport Club had a welcoming commitee for our arrival in Tokyo.

Four Cosmos, a S3 RX7 Turbo GT, and a AZ1 in convoy heading into Tokyo for lunch.

Outside Knightsports workshop

Some old British trucks at the Jameson Distillery

Did a bus tour out to the lakes around Salzburg - nice collection of classics - and some not so classics out on s Sunny day..